hobolog :: Maps

Bruce at bioneural.net proposes a standard icon for geotags. I might have to start using it with my geo mashup wordpress plugin.

These maps have been public for a while from the Perry-Castañeda Library of the University of Texas at Austinj, but this Google-map index of them make finding the one you need much easier.

(Via Free Geography Tools)

You can get free blank maps for lots of places around the world, unhindered by copyright.

(Via The Map Room)

A Map Room post about an upcoming documentary on Peter Arno got me curious enough to visit ODTMaps.com, a place that challenges the ways we represent our world. It was intriguing enough to get me to the documentary previews.

Mostly for myself: a nice script that displays all of Google’s map icons. They’ve added some nice ones.

Tom Dilts has illustrated beyond a doubt where the best places in the US for climbing are. Now we need them for each season!

(Via GOBlog)

The Google Maps API and GeoNames are two of the most potentially useful web services for outdoor stuff, and the SOLMETRA PHP library makes use of both - something I need to check out.

It took outdoor enthusiasts in Boulder County 10 years to get a land ownership and trail map of their trail-wealthy county produced in cooperation with government agencies. I wonder how many other communities want something like this but are unable to bring together the required resources?

This site has some interesting outdoor stuff, including digital panoramas from some selected peaks with other visible peaks labeled by name and distance.

(Via Free Geography Tools)

The new Google feature for driving directions might be good for bike tour routes, keeping you off big highways. Shoulder width is probably not considered, I’m guessing.

Looks like a visit to Sydney, Australia provides a climber with a wide variety of locales.

You can now download topos in GeoPDF format from store.usgs.gov (seems broken now, but hopefully is for real). Get helpful hints and how-to’s at Free GeoTools.

The new “outdoor trips” layer in Google Earth has led me to trimbleoutdoors.com. This company is selling navigation tools for cellphones, and compiling an outdoor trips database. Not huge yet, but seems to be good quality.

Google has again managed to generate impressive buzz with it’s new “My Maps” feature at Google Maps. I happy to see it, because I hope it will save me from having to write a map editor for my software. Instead I just import a KML file, which can be created or edited with Google’s tools.

This has been brewing for a while, and now you can officially download oodles of map data at GeoGratis. I found topos in the CanMatrix data set.

Via The Map Room

A nice howto from Free GeoTools with instructions for downloading National Forest topos that are more recent than the standard USGS quads.

These are not available as Web Mapping Service (by a long shot), but Free GeoTools tells us where to download the images.

I haven’t tried it yet, but GPS Tracks has nice, simple, utilitarian interface for uploading and viewing GPX files on a Google map.

This is a nice outdoor activity mashup for Southwestern Pennsylvania. Quite useful if you live there, I’d imagine.

If you have a blog that refers to outdoor places, my map site theoutdoormap.com has something new to offer: automatic links back to your blog posts. Take a second to consider it.

We often name outdoor places when we write. Maybe we link the name to one of a great number of web sites relevant to the place. I think we could reap many benefits by sending these links to the location pages of The Outdoor Map:

• If your link comes from a blog with an RSS feed, The Outdoor Map will scan the feed and attempt to add a link back to your post from the location page. (Here’s an example). This will create a chronological list of blog posts relevant to the location, including yours. All it takes to accomplish this is:
  1. Search The Outdoor Map to find the location.
  2. Copy the URL for the location’s detail page.
  3. Use the URL in your post to link the location name.

  That’s it - you don’t even have to have an account at The Outdoor Map.

• I’m committed to gathering the best online resources for outdoor locations available for every location.
• If you are a member, you can add relevant links to the location detail page, and rate existing links.

That’s a brief summary. There’s more there, and I’m always working to improve it. You can help me just by using it. If something is preventing you, please tell me what it is. Thanks!